In all seriousness, it's a stupid solution, but a stupid problem as well. Maybe this averages out to sane?

But I can't wait for the Lupin III special where he steals these, only to lose them when Zenigata accidentally picks them up, thinks they're quarters due to having minimal experience with American money, and then spends them on a cup of ramen.

tricycleracer:shiat like this makes you realize that our economy is one mass delusion.

So is the deluded idea that perpetual growth is somehow sustainable ... in fact, we built our ENTIRE economy around the idea of perpetual growth. Which makes total sense, you know, in a finite universe.

vygramul:Well, currency is also far more efficient than bartering. It's portable, and can be divided in ways goods can't normally. (My goat is worth 2.5 chickens, but I really don't want half a chicken, and you don't really have anything else I want...)

It's still a promissory. Platinum dollars is an attempt at "upselling" something that has no foundation. Working on the English standard of "I'll get you a pint/who's round is it?" relies on just the same trusts and mechanics, except it's the barter system with real numbers and real currency.

You know- rather than futures, hedge funds, interest, and other confidence tricks.

You want $1 trillion for each coin? Well, the economy's not that great and I don't see a lot of people coming in to buy a $1 trillion coin. Tell you what, I can give you $10,000 for it and not a penny more.

PsyLord:[www.history.com image 475x240] You want $1 trillion for each coin? Well, the economy's not that great and I don't see a lot of people coming in to buy a $1 trillion coin. Tell you what, I can give you $10,000 for it and not a penny more.

tricycleracer:PsyLord: [www.history.com image 475x240] You want $1 trillion for each coin? Well, the economy's not that great and I don't see a lot of people coming in to buy a $1 trillion coin. Tell you what, I can give you $10,000 for it and not a penny more.

Holocaust Agnostic:Mr. Eugenides:The total supply of US currency is currently less than 3 trillion.

The M3 money supply in the US is roughly 12 trillion. If the government were to create 2 trillion by fiat, a dollar would become worth about 12/14ths of a dollar or about $.86 overnight.

The horror?

Well it would take a while to filter through the system to retail prices, and longer to filter to wages, but yes, the horror.

The stock and equities markets would be the first to feel the hit dropping probably 10 to 20% on the first day with them settling in around a 15% drop. Over time, they might recover but they'd be starting from a new baseline and the devaluation of the stock would impact credit for the company.

Oil would jump within a day to 14/12ths it's current price. What is an $80 barrel today will be $93 the next day. A $4 gallon of milk would jump to $4.60 within a month or two along with the rest of your groceries.

Your paycheck will remain the same though unless or until you can negotiate a rase.

Here's a visual on the debt ceiling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTBODoBaCns&sns=fb

Platinum's worth a little less than gold currently at $1,601/Ozt. The dumbasses at the mint are still putting a face value on it that's $1,551 below it's current value in fiat Federal Reserve "dollars".

While I admit it's a novel solution it has to many problems. What happens if someone STEALS the coin? Is the coin deposited and then immediately destroyed or does it sit somewhere tempting thieves? No one person in the history of the dollar has has 1 trillion dollars much less 2.

seadoo2006:tricycleracer: shiat like this makes you realize that our economy is one mass delusion.

So is the deluded idea that perpetual growth is somehow sustainable ... in fact, we built our ENTIRE economy around the idea of perpetual growth. Which makes total sense, you know, in a finite universe.

You've nailed it. We should be working toward a stable economy with very controlled growth and a diversity of sectors. Today 70% of the US economy is based in consumer spending, which is a recipe for economic disaster. It makes us consumers and dependent of foreign producers. China understands this and has been leveraging it for sometime now. They are poised to become the world's largest economy within 20 years, dwarfing ours. Some predictions are that the US will be irrelevant as a world power and economic base of the world in 50 years. I don't think it's going to take that long. We're going the way of Great Britain.

seadoo2006:So is the deluded idea that perpetual growth is somehow sustainable ... in fact, we built our ENTIRE economy around the idea of perpetual growth. Which makes total sense, you know, in a finite universe.

Moderate perpetual growth is possible as long as there are advances. We find more efficient ways to produce crops, so there's more food. We advance technology so that smart phones are commonplace. We have refrigerators with operating systems. These things count as "growth". That's sustainable as far as anyone can currently see into the future. GDP is just a measurement of all that stuff in dollars adjusted for inflation. As long as advancement is possible, so is growth.

alienyouth111:Here's a visual on the debt ceiling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTBODoBaCns&sns=fb

Platinum's worth a little less than gold currently at $1,601/Ozt. The dumbasses at the mint are still putting a face value on it that's $1,551 below it's current value in fiat Federal Reserve "dollars".

Which is why only an idiot sells a gold or plat coin for face value. Even gold coins are stamped $10 or $20 a coin.

What you do is sell to someone for the cost of the material inside the coin.

keytronic:Of all the Simpson's episodes that accurately commented on or predicted the future of our society, never in my wildest dreams did I think the trillion dollar bill episode would be one of them.

Don't worry America, I'm sure having a government that continually confuses reality with parody will have no long term consequences.

Knight of the Woeful Countenance:Holocaust Agnostic: Lumpmoose: Maybe asinine. But an asinine problem requires an asinine solution. We have enough problems without adding arbitrary ones on top, like the invented debt ceiling and its subsequent biannual invented crisis.

Under this scenario, the U.S. Mint would make a pair of trillion-dollar platinum coins. The president orders the coins to be deposited at the Federal Reserve.

What's the actual physical process for moving the coins from the US Mint to the Federal Reserve? If they're stolen, does the US government just declare them worthless?

They wold be fairly easy to prove stolen I imagine.

Pawnshop probably couldn't make change.

Now, I want to help you out with this, but unfortunately, I just don't know enough about trillion dollar platinum coins to make a decision right now. Would you mind if I called a guy who's an expert in Numismatics?

I applaud your use of the word Numismatics. (Not a word you get to use every day, and often receive blank stares of incomprehension when you do.)

jonny_q:Moderate perpetual growth is possible as long as there are advances. We find more efficient ways to produce crops, so there's more food. We advance technology so that smart phones are commonplace. We have refrigerators with operating systems. These things count as "growth"

Except, you know, for this little 8000-mile-across ball they call the Earth. We actually haven't found 'more efficient' ways to grow crops. Rather, we've mined tens-of-millions-of-years worth of concentrated phosphorus deposits to treble yields over the last century. And we're seriously running short of that. All those billions of smartphones need tantalum and erbium. Which we're seriously short of.

There's also the problem of how much 'moderate' growth compounds. 1% growth in population would be 1 person per every square meter of earth's surface within roughly 1000 years. Our current global energy consumption, growing at 1%/year (currently over 20%, btw) would be greater than the theoretical solar flux hitting Earth in around 900.

Perpetual growth isn't happening. Not just a long term theory... the world's population will peak and start shrinking within the lives of many Fark readers. We need to adjust economics to account for this core notion. Hopefully Japan (as leaders in the, "ummm... we've stopped growing by any measure, not just population") figures it out.

seadoo2006:So is the deluded idea that perpetual growth is somehow sustainable ... in fact, we built our ENTIRE economy around the idea of perpetual growth. Which makes total sense, you know, in a finite universe.

On the other hand, we are only using a relatively small percentage of the known universe right now, and have quite a few generations left before heat death becomes a real problem. Perpetual growth, strictly speaking, is not sustainable, but managed growth is.

Now, I want to help you out with this, but unfortunately, I just don't know enough about trillion dollar platinum coins to make a decision right now. Would you mind if I called a guy who's an expert in Numismatics?

I applaud your use of the word Numismatics. (Not a word you get to use every day, and often receive blank stares of incomprehension when you do.)

Elzar:The only thing that trumps trillion dollar platinum coins is the set of brass on the guy who tries to implement said strategy...

Point of order. I mean lets get serious.

1. Platinum is silly, pot metal is far more suitable.2. The coin should have an elephant on the back being tag teamed by two rampant donkeys.3. The Speaker of the houses mug on the front.4. Officially referred to a a US Bo Ner.5. The words 'futuis me. non te pedicabo'

meanmutton: "Well, they approve spending but that doesn't mean that they approve borrowing."

They also approve revenue rates.And you can't really approve a massive cut to revenue rates (GWB Tax Cuts) *and* a massive expansion of spending (Medicare D, DHS/TSA, Iraq, Afghanistan) and then play stupid and say "well, shiat. We never said we could *borrow* our way there!"

Because, yeah, those two actions are an implicit statement that they'd like to borrow the fark out of some money. Furthermore, "Deficits don't matter" made it explicit.If they meant to say: the sick, poor and elderly need to be kicked out into the streets to make this all balance out, one would imagine they'd have rolled it into either the bill that cut revenue or the bill that approved more spending.

Take $2 Trillion worth of platinum and make a lot of it into medical instruments and sell the rest to raise, say, $1.5 Trillion in cash. Train millions of doctors to perform cosmetic surgery. Send them all over the USA and the world to perform cosmetic surgery on the old, the ugly, and the victims of war and civil war, etc.--all expenses paid for by Obamacare and USAID.

People are paid more money when they are younger and better-looking, so all this cosmetic surgery will not only employ a few million people as doctors, nurses, make-up artists, temps, cleaning staff, cooks, etc., but will also give a massive boost to employment, wages and salaries, and pensions. It will also give a massive boost to everything from hospital building to food processing (hard to eat after cosmetic surgery--need a lot of soft, bland food).

Thanks to the free cosmetic surgery (and follow-up care) millions, maybe billions of people will be more attractive, which will give a boost to fashion, restaurants, hotels, prostitution, and thousands of other sectors of the economy. Also they will be more likely to spend on new houses (as they find more attractive spouses) and so forth.

I can not imagine a sector of the economy that would not be improved by massive cosmetic surgery on the fuglies. I could use a bit of work myself.

If you simply give people trillions of dollars in "money", whether it is fiat currency or precious metals, it will deflate the value of the precious metals and inflate the price of everything else by causing inflation. There is no difference between dumping a massive pile of gold into the economy and printing money. Only fools think there is.

Just look at what the treasure of the New World did to the economy of Portugal and Spain. The price of precious metals fell by about a third according to Adam Smith, the great Liberal Economist. The Spanish economy was ruined and rather than making Spain richer, it merely destroyed gold and silver mines in Europe, which couldn't compete on cost with slaves that were worked to death in the New World.

In short, this idea is one of the dumbest I've ever heard and any one of my jokes would do the economy more good if you printed them on toilet paper and handed it out for free on the street outside of high schools and grade schools.

Mr. Eugenides:The stock and equities markets would be the first to feel the hit dropping probably 10 to 20% on the first day with them settling in around a 15% drop. Over time, they might recover but they'd be starting from a new baseline and the devaluation of the stock would impact credit for the company.

I think you have it backwards. Printing hard money is inflationary, it takes more dollars to buy the same stuff. The flip side is debt loads are reduced, since they get paid off in cheaper dollars. That's good since excess debt is half of the problem. In theory the exchange rate falls, which makes imports more expensive, but exports more attractive. What happens to the exchange rate though is anyone's guess since a lot of other countries are managing the recession even worse than the US. Wages are tricky since with high unemployment it's hard to workers to press for higher wages.

JackieRabbit:seadoo2006: tricycleracer: shiat like this makes you realize that our economy is one mass delusion.

So is the deluded idea that perpetual growth is somehow sustainable ... in fact, we built our ENTIRE economy around the idea of perpetual growth. Which makes total sense, you know, in a finite universe.

You've nailed it. We should be working toward a stable economy with very controlled growth and a diversity of sectors. Today 70% of the US economy is based in consumer spending, which is a recipe for economic disaster. It makes us consumers and dependent of foreign producers. China understands this and has been leveraging it for sometime now. They are poised to become the world's largest economy within 20 years, dwarfing ours. Some predictions are that the US will be irrelevant as a world power and economic base of the world in 50 years. I don't think it's going to take that long. We're going the way of Great Britain.

Depending on Consumers wouldn't be such a bad idea if workers' wages hadn't stagnated over the last 30 years. If your economy is going to depend on people buying lots of useless crap, you darn well better pay them enough to ensure they can afford to keep buying all that useless crap.

Um, fellas, raising the debt ceiling of the federal government 16% will not mean 16% inflation. Nor will paying previously agreed-upon future expenditures any other way, including this way.

Either way, the contractors and suppliers and soldiers and government employees and Chinese bondholders who are presently already scheduled to be paid, by act of Congress, will get paid. Mostly in electrons representing dollars, a few of them in actual bills.

In Dec. 2009, the debt limit was raised to $12.4T. In Feb. 2010, less than three months later, it was raised to $14.3T. That's an increase of 15%. Did we get 15% inflation in those three months?

For that matter, in the 28 years between 1983 and 2011, the debt limit has gone up from $1.4T to $14.7T, an increase of 1,050%. Have we had average annual 8.7% inflation every year since early in the Reagan years? (I.e., do things cost 10.5 times what they did in 1983?)

These things are not the same thing. The Federal Reserve controls the money supply. It has other options besides allowing for instantaneous hyperinflation (e.g., raising the discount rate, increasing the reserve requirement, raising the federal funds rate, etc.) It will use them whether this gets done the normal way or the stupid coin way, just like it has for as long as it's been in existence.

They should just make 100 of those couns and then you will be good for almost ten years! I can't see how it would negatively impact the value of the currency. I like to look at Zimbabwe as a shining example of sound monetary policy.

As a serious question though, if paying back the 16+ Trillion dollars will crash your currency, how do you ever plan on paying it back? Does it simply ensure a collosal debt at interest for all eternity?

dave_dfwm:The real problem is government spending. Washington spends like a teenager who stole his parents' credit card.

bingo. no matter how much money a wealthy girl may give WashDC it won't get them out of hock. they would simply spend themselves in just as deep in short time, all over again. they are like a relative whose life is a series of poor decisions. they owe everyone and their sad stories never end. they may actually be intelligent and well educated but every week they do something stunningly stupid.

it's sad that these dooshbags in WashDC really don't have to answer to anyone. very wealthy powerful families own and run the business, have the big money and thus own and run the government. those people are greedy, it's natures way, so they spend their lives putting the screws to the working stiff tax payers seven ways from Sunday.

since we have a nation full of pussies with closets full of weapons none of this will ever change.

long ago a authentic Colorado cowboy told me: "It ain't what you make, it's how you spend it". took me a little while but i found out that gentleman was absolutely right. spend with care and save some every week. it's really quite simple.

So government bonds right? Then you've got this thing where people get payed interest, or maybe sell them, depending on their mood. So like, when no one trusts that their reserves of foreign currencies (denominated in bonds for interests sake, but essentially just big boy dollars) will retain value to use in trade with said issuing conomy? Then no reinvest, find mature adults who make good on claims not just joke around like a billion chinese peasant past labor worthless, if is, worthless labor start carry gun now.

So sooooolllyyy..

If you don't understand how this will spark domestic inflation i have no idea how to help you.

CokeBear:JackieRabbit: seadoo2006: tricycleracer: shiat like this makes you realize that our economy is one mass delusion.

So is the deluded idea that perpetual growth is somehow sustainable ... in fact, we built our ENTIRE economy around the idea of perpetual growth. Which makes total sense, you know, in a finite universe.

You've nailed it. We should be working toward a stable economy with very controlled growth and a diversity of sectors. Today 70% of the US economy is based in consumer spending, which is a recipe for economic disaster. It makes us consumers and dependent of foreign producers. China understands this and has been leveraging it for sometime now. They are poised to become the world's largest economy within 20 years, dwarfing ours. Some predictions are that the US will be irrelevant as a world power and economic base of the world in 50 years. I don't think it's going to take that long. We're going the way of Great Britain.

Depending on Consumers wouldn't be such a bad idea if workers' wages hadn't stagnated over the last 30 years. If your economy is going to depend on people buying lots of useless crap, you darn well better pay them enough to ensure they can afford to keep buying all that useless crap.

If you are actually manufacturing the crap that those consumers buy. That's what we used to do. We were a producer nation and exported goods to other countries. We still do to a much smaller extent that we used to. Also, a consumer-based economy only allows money to be in a wage-earners pocket for a short amount of time before it goes back to the 1%. Back when we were a producer-based economy, the average person saved more and invested more, which kept a larger portion of the DGP in the hands of the people. Today, they buy crap they don't need and usually in credit. This is not sustainable.

Well it would take a while to filter through the system to retail prices, and longer to filter to wages, but yes, the horror.

The stock and equities markets would be the first to feel the hit dropping probably 10 to 20% on the first day with them settling in around a 15% drop. Over time, they might recover but they'd be starting from a new baseline and the devaluation of the stock would impact credit for the company.

Oil would jump within a day to 14/12ths it's current price. What is an $80 barrel today will be $93 the next day. A $4 gallon of milk would jump to $4.60 within a month or two along with the rest of your groceries.

Your paycheck will remain the same though unless or until you can negotiate a rase.

So yeah, I think that's a not good scenario.

Sort of... equities actually go up with inflation, since you would have to spend more dollars on the asset. People would see an overnight JUMP in stock prices... but of course all your money is worth less.

Well it would take a while to filter through the system to retail prices, and longer to filter to wages, but yes, the horror.

The stock and equities markets would be the first to feel the hit dropping probably 10 to 20% on the first day with them settling in around a 15% drop. Over time, they might recover but they'd be starting from a new baseline and the devaluation of the stock would impact credit for the company.

Oil would jump within a day to 14/12ths it's current price. What is an $80 barrel today will be $93 the next day. A $4 gallon of milk would jump to $4.60 within a month or two along with the rest of your groceries.

Your paycheck will remain the same though unless or until you can negotiate a rase.

So yeah, I think that's a not good scenario.

Sort of... equities actually go up with inflation, since you would have to spend more dollars on the asset. People would see an overnight JUMP in stock prices... but of course all your money is worth less.

Worth less is a vast improvement over worthless for the Mid and Low classes.Progressively worse as you go up the food chain.I like it. Not as good en toto as reissuing currency, but acceptable.

Lumpmoose:Maybe asinine. But an asinine problem requires an asinine solution. We have enough problems without adding arbitrary ones on top, like the invented debt ceiling and its subsequent biannual invented crisis.

Under this scenario, the U.S. Mint would make a pair of trillion-dollar platinum coins. The president orders the coins to be deposited at the Federal Reserve.

What's the actual physical process for moving the coins from the US Mint to the Federal Reserve? If they're stolen, does the US government just declare them worthless?

seadoo2006:tricycleracer: shiat like this makes you realize that our economy is one mass delusion.

So is the deluded idea that perpetual growth is somehow sustainable ... in fact, we built our ENTIRE economy around the idea of perpetual growth. Which makes total sense, you know, in a finite universe.

Is your argument really that we're going to use up all of the resources in the universe in a meaningful time-frame?